Hoarders: a little bit obsessed

I hate to follow such a lighthearted and funny posted with something so heavy, but I just can’t stop thinking about this and I must share. Yesterday, AMNY wrote a small article on hoarders in NY. If you don’t already know I have a slight facsincation/obsession with hoarders (Hoarders: Burried Alive, Hoarders, and Animal Hoarders – I watch it all). Maybe it’s because I’m a neat-freak organized perfectionist and cannot even remotely comprend how someone can let their home become such a mess. Of course, I’ve already known about the famous mother/daughter “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Beale. If you haven’t already seen the documentry Grey Garden’s you need to Netflix that instantly, Little Edie is divine. However, in this article AMNY highlighted the two famous hoarding brother’s that I had never heard of, the Collyer brothers. I immediately googled them and found numerous articles, not to mention the many books that have been written about them (which I plan on reading next). They were known for their excentric lifestyle and hoarding, which ultimately led to the demise of these two recluses. The older brother, Langley was first killed by one of his booby traps in their apartment. He was bringing food to his older brother, Homer, who was blind- Langley fed Homer 100 oranges a week, believing this would eventually cure his blindness. He also saved newspapers and magazines for Homer to read upon regaining his sight. However, Homer never regained his sight and died of starvation shortly after Langley’s death. After the police had been notified of a dead body in the apartment they first discovered Homer, but Langley was nowhere to be found. The police searched for him as far as Atlantic city, eventually they discovered Langley’s body after three weeks and only 10 feet away from the spot in which Homer’s body had been found. The police removed 134 tons of garbage from the apartment include 14 pianos (both upright and baby grand), human organs in pickle jars, 8 cats, more than 25,000 books, collection of guns, the folding top of a horse-drawn carriage, and more.